Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Medienwissenschaft

Even though “myth” is a prominent leitmotif of psychoanalysis, interpretations of both Freud and Lacan have so far almost entirely missed out on reflecting upon the questions of why, how, and to what end mythical discourse is employed in the first place by the mentioned authors.

My presentation will hence begin with a recapitulation of how deconstruction approached the temporal idiosyncrasies of Freud’s conceptualization of mythical events. I will argue, however, that the conditions of any mythic event taking place can be investigated from a media theoretical perspective, which also proves to be more suitable to Lacanian practice. Therefore, I regard the myth as a means of temporal manipulation in which such themes as the “Names-of-the-Father,” “castration,” and “phallus” are all intertwined, and thus operate in a time-critical manner. An empty signifier (phallus) via an operation (castration) can execute a primordial action (Names-of-the-Father), whose operative temporal framework is labelled myth in psychoanalysis. Next, I will propose that the diagrammatization of these relations as the Graph of Desire, both in its respective process of modeling as well as an actual graph, enacts the various temporal dimensions of simultaneity, synchronicity, recursivity, etc., all of which are triggered by an original lack: a hole/halt in the flow of time. As a conclusion, I will present Lacan’s reading of Freud’s two case studies during his early, so-called pro-seminars, and argue that the way he situates mythical discourse as “the neurotic’s individual myth” in fact relies heavily on a technique that produces asynchronic simultaneity via recursivity.